Hardware Workshop

Currently in Boston in the US since I finally caught an invitation to the Hardware Workshop run by Bolt.vc. Was a great 2 day conference which taught me a lot… They had some great talks, some of which I knew, some of which I had a good idea about and some of which I didn’t know I needed to know and now have a score more things to think about. Hardware just got harder, but I also met a lot of cool people who are doing projects just like us and a few that launched and came through the other side. So it can be done, but I’m under less illusions that it would be easy. The first two hours on the last day were a barrage of stories about how hard it is to do lots of important tasks… almost as if they’re trying to persuade us to give up! 🙂

I decided to take few days to hang out but the work never stops so I’ve been planning and thinking about the kind of things that you don’t always get time to consider when you’re elbows deep in hardware and software… but now I’m eager to get back. I have a 1.5m x 1.5m CNC router that is 99% finished in our workspace to get fully running and a to-do list that doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller.

The project was recently accepted onto a hardware accelerator, but after much deliberation we decided to pass. The money would have been nice, but not critical, but the issue was more to do with timing… and shipping prototypes to another country, especially when they’re so huge, isn’t perhaps the best use of a new injection of cash. Asia isn’t going anywhere.

I also had the chance to take a tour of the artisans asylum, which is just amazing. Where we are right now is pretty good but this is on another level… please open one in London someone!

Both the rift and Vive pre-orders remain in limbo, despite 15 minute (hey, the card wouldn’t go through 🙁 ) and 3 minute timestamps respectively. Currently considering even reaching out to Palmer personally since the craziness of launch week has died down a little but I suppose they’ll come when they come… although perhaps a private youtube demo link might go a long way in persuading him. Hardware is really hard when you can’t get the other hardware to make your own hardware 🙁